


Hungry Dreams

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Series: Short and Sweet (Fics of About 1000 Words or Less) [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Dreams, Gen, Kinda Freeform if I Understand what Freeform Means?, Nightmares, this is kinda weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 01:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13823310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Somewhere after Alfield but before Zadash, in between watches, under a night sky thick with stars, six adventures lay sleeping. Outwardly they are quiet, they are calm, they are peaceful. Inwardly though, that is a different matter altogether, for their dreams are music and poetry with their own strange meters.





	Hungry Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Real talk folks, I don't know what this is. It's not quite poetry, it's not quite music, but if you read it out loud there's a definite rhythm going on. I should know, I've read all of it out loud several times now. If I had a decent mic and a decent voice, I'd record it. This is different and weird and I kinda love it.

Somewhere after Alfield but before Zadash, in between watches, under a night sky thick with stars, six adventures lay sleeping. Outwardly they are quiet, they are calm, they are peaceful. Inwardly though, that is a different matter altogether, for their dreams are music and poetry with their own strange meters.

_Caleb dreams._

It all comes back to fire, in the end. Ice preserves, acid dissolves, but fire? Fire _consumes_. It takes and it takes and it takes everything from him, home and people and love and happiness, it eats it all, turning everything to ashes. The ashes fall on him like snow, but he isn’t cold. He _burns_ , he is hot, he is bright, and he gives back what was given to him. He feeds his hate to the flames and the fire devours those that have wronged him. He burns from within, a phoenix reborn into a burnt out husk jumping at shadows.

_Nott dreams._

There is never enough. Never enough for the smallest, the weakest, the softest. She heard it all the time back at the goblin lair. Don’t touch that, drink that, eat that, that’s not for you, not for you, not big, not strong, not brave, not not not. Her old name eaten, replaced by a negative, alone and hungry in a world full of shiny things that she learned how to take for herself, starving for what she could never have before and what no one would give her. There is prison, there is pain, and it is almost like being home, except not, because _he_ is there. The man with the red hair and the sad eyes and the smiles just for her, the one she would do anything to protect. The one who didn’t say, “not for you,” but “Nott. For you.” She’d die for him, and the manticore’s jaws close around her again and again and again.

_Beau dreams._

She’s starving for something, something she can’t find in her father’s eyes, no matter how hard she tries, and she tried, she tried, years and years of sitting when she wanted to be running, but it’s no good. _She’s_ no good. She wasn’t what he wanted, she never can be, so to hell with that, she keeps looking, keeps fighting, wears her bruises like badges because it means she’s _doing_ something. Falls in with a bad crowd, bad as she is, looking for something, something they find in her with her snark and her strength. She sees that glimmer in their eyes, something like what she is looking for, and it helps sate that hunger, until the day she gets caught, her father’s hand on her shoulder. She looks in his eyes, sees herself written off, cast off, cast out. Sent away, she keeps running, keeps fighting, beating at the walls of the world until her fists are bloody.

_Molly dreams._

Blood in the air, blood on the swords, blood on _his_ swords, the real ones, not the ones made of shiny new lies. _His_ swords are heavier, heavy as truth, swinging through the air like a song, like a promise, burning with light, bright enough to blind. Blood on his skin, on his tongue, in his throat, pain as laughter, pain like a smile, smile like a scar. He smiles when he sees them, zombies and ghasts and ghouls, liches with dead eyes and open mouths, all coming towards him. They’re hungry, so hungry, and he dances among them, cuts them down and doesn’t miss, not once, not ever. The enemies are endless, some will starve before they reach him.

_Jester dreams._

She’s a colorful distraction, always moving, shifting, smiling, joking. She lives up to her name, the name she chose, fool on a precipice, but she’s not going to fall. It’s the journey that’s important, dancing in the rain, smelling the roses, armed with a sickle and a smile and a charm as sharp as both. Simple maybe, simple but not stupid, water and air are simple but you need those to live. Simple like hunger, crumbs of sugar on her lips and honey on her fingers because why be sour when you can be sweet? Looking into the faces of everyone she meets, looking for the missing piece of the puzzle, looking for the punchline.

_Fjord dreams._

Under the ground and he’s paralyzed, can’t help, can’t save his friends, _you’ll betray them in the end._ He sees death coming for him, rows of teeth teeth teeth, and it can’t end here, it’s too dry, he can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t scream. Then water all around him, surrounds him, drowning again, breathing again. That eye upon him, watching, judging, finding him wanting. Shadows in the water, eels with open mouths, sharks with rows of teeth teeth teeth, circling, circling, circling. **_CONSUME_**. The word burns through his mind, in his blood, in his bones, but that word is not for him. As one the shadows, obedient and hungry, strike strike strike.

There is a seventh, far from the six but nearer than she had been. Wandering always, but never lost.

 _Yasha dreams_.

She dreams everything, fire and wanting, bloody fists and bloody swords, sugar smiles and shadows with teeth. There’s more than that, always more than that, she dreams everything and remembers only fragments, left to pick up the pieces broken by the waking. There’s frayed ropes, broken chains, caves like open mouths, waking gods, hungry gods, starving gods, teeth in her back, black feathers fading to gray fading to white, covered with blood, screaming, screaming, she’s screaming—

Yasha wakes up with her screams echoing off the trees and she’s up and walking before the sound even has a chance to fade. Her back aches, but she just shifts her shoulders and keeps going north, going where she’s needed, a little bit closer to six people sleeping in a field, the moonlight above shining down as sharp as teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr if you want to drop by and say hi!


End file.
